Twitch’s latest features highlight channels’ top fans

The majority of Twitch’s product announcements lately have been focused around new tools or expanded money-making opportunities for its video creators. Today, the company is instead launching new features for viewers – one related to Twitch’s 60-second video snippets called Clips and another to its virtual tipping mechanism, Cheering.

Starting today, “Clip Champs” and “Top Cheerers,” as these new features are called, will begin rolling out. The goal is with the additions is to better recognize those fans who regularly engage with and share creators’ content.

Viewers who publish at least one video clip from a channel per week over the course of four weeks can earn Clip Champ status, as long as those Clips combined deliver a total of 50 views from other Twitch users or higher. Clip Champs will be rewarded for their activity with a badge that’s visible in chat, on Clips sharing pages, on Clips tabs on the channel pages, and on game directory pages, says Twitch.

Meanwhile, Top Cheerers is another way Twitch will begin to highlight a channel’s top fans. In a leaderboard that appears in Partner and Affiliate Channels, the top three viewers who have Cheered the most will be displayed while the board is minimized. If you click to expand the leaderboard, you can see the top 10.

Cheering is a way fans reward their favorite creators by using special animated emotes in chat that are bought using virtual goods called “Bits.” This form of online tipping has been popular across chat platforms for some time, and has become the standard way gaming fans today tip creators on sites including not only Twitch, but also YouTube Gaming, Facebook Live, Periscope, and now Microsoft Mixer.

By pitting fans against one another to see who has cheered/tipped the most, Twitch could potentially encourage increased spending by the channel’s viewers who want to be perceived as a top fan.

This leaderboard offers two modes. One is a weekly mode that resets every seven days, so it won’t necessarily be dominated by all the same names (unless some fans are set on outspending others). The other is an all-time mode, which shows the top cheerers to date.

In addition to leaderboard status, the top 3 fans will receive a chat badge, Twitch notes.

“Hundreds of thousands of creators are able to generate revenue on Twitch thanks to thesupport they get from their passionate communities,” said Justin Oh, Product MarketingManager at Twitch, in a statement about the launch. “With Clip Champs and Top Cheerers, supportive viewers are able to get proper recognition for the role they play in the creator’s success.”

The Top Cheerers feature will be turned on by default for all streamers that already have the “Pin Top Cheer” on. If it’s off, they will also be off, says Twitch. Clip Champs, meanwhile, is on by default.

We understand these new features will begin rolling out today, with Clip Champs going live immediately. Top Cheerers will launch closer to the end of the month.